Lucky Stroke
by Verboten Byacolate
Summary: "Ve, dog food is no good, but pasta will do nicely, si?" Germany/cat boy!Italy, AU


The fire was stoked, casting a cheery glow about the room as it sparked and crackled. Ludwig prodded the log on top, sending sparks every which way in a shower of bright orange before setting the poker back in its black iron stand and pushed himself out of his crouch before the hearth, stepping back to survey his work. Finding it passable, as the room had taken on a comfortable warmth in the nippy low-degree weather, he patted the head of his German shepherd upon passing to the kitchen to switch off the light.

His schedule when Gilbert was away was simple: soak up every blessed ounce of silence in the ultimate comfort. Ludwig had already consumed his simple dinner of meat, cheese and bread, showered, and was planning to settle in for a comfortable evening of reading by the fire with a mug of hot apple cider before retreating to bed. It was a good plan, he thought. Even his dogs seemed to agree, their lips pulled back from their muzzles as they followed him from the kitchen and planted themselves silently on the plush rug before the fire.

Ludwig sat his mug down on the small table beside the sofa and padded over to the window, intent on turning out the lamp by the sliding glass doors, when he saw a flash of movement on the patio in the dark outside. Brow furrowed, he drew back the curtains to investigate.

A small cat had perched upon the one snow-free cushioned lawn chair near the window. It curled in on itself, forming a ball of fur.

The German promptly let the curtains fall and turned out the lamp.

He was not a cat person. And besides, it probably belonged to some old lady down the street. It wasn't his responsibility. He didn't even particularly _like _cats. And that was that. Ludwig settled on the couch for a few blissful hours of reading.

Three minutes in signaled the fifth time his eyes flickered toward the window. But he wasn't concerned. He simply wanted to know if the cat was still loitering on his lawn furniture.

He had three dogs. His brother kept small birds. There was no way he would even consider bringing a feline into the equation; it promised nothing but chaos, and that was exactly what he _didn't _need.

It was just a cat. They overpopulated planet Earth enough as it was.

Really.

He had more important things to do.

He didn't even know how to take care of a cat.

And what if it had _fleas_?

... But surely any unsavory parasites would not be able to survive at such a low temperature.

Probably neither would any small creature. Like a...

No. He definitely wasn't thinking about it.

Ludwig closed his book and sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. He was such a weak-willed creature.

The cat was startled when he slid the glass door open and it darted from the chair into the snow beyond the patio tile, disappearing around the corner of the house. Ludwig watched it go, sighing. He closed the door again, his dogs watching intently, turning their heads after him as he passed. Ludwig retrieved his coat from the closet, donned a pair of gloves, and filled a shotglass of warm chicken broth from the stove before heading back out. A split second before he opened the door, his eyes caught sight of a pair of twitching ears poking around the corner in the dim fire's glow before they vanished once more.

Ludwig rolled his eyes and crouched down, setting the faintly steaming glass on the ground. "_Kätzchen. Hier, Kätzchen_." He clicked his tongue, holding his gloved hand out palm up.

Hesitance played out over the cat's body language as it slowly made its way toward him from around the corner. It sniffed at the steam emitted by the broth and, with a twitch of whiskers, dipped its head forward and lapped at the liquid hungrily. Ludwig slowly reached out, running the thick gloved fingers between the cat's ears. They perked, and its head lifted.

Its tiny pink tongue darted out to clean the broth from its nose and through the fog of his breath, Ludwig took note of the fluffy creature's coloring. White, splotched light brown between its eyes, on its paws and tail. His hands rubbed around the side of the cat's neck and it purred, wriggling and arching closer to his touch. He stroked it gently and thoroughly, along the curve of its spine, its fluffy sides and its chin, and every touch seemed to put the cat in a state of extreme pleasure. It moved ceaselessly, like water against his hand, curling and ducking and circling around him until finally, it rolled between his crouched knees. Ludwig gently scratched along its sides and curled them around securely, lifting the lightweight feline into his arms.

For a moment, it seemed to struggle when he stood, but Ludwig scratched along its back, retreating into the house. The dogs jumped up in excitement when he closed the sliding glass door and Ludwig sternly issued a command that had them as still and docile as he wished. This, however, did not seem to matter to the cat, as it gave an fierce struggle, and Ludwig soon felt sharp claws pierce his coat. Ludwig pointed down the hall. "_Geh_."

The three scampered off to the guest... well, Gilbert's room, and with that, Ludwig promptly dropped the cat onto the sofa, receiving a short, surprised meowing noise in response, and retreated to the front door to remove his jacket and gloves. When he returned with a hand towel, he found himself slightly surprised that it had remained in the place where he dropped it, rolled over on its back to display... well, _his_ white belly, playing with one of the green tassels on the sofa pillow. Ludwig sat himself on the cushion next to the cat, scratching its soft white belly with one hand, and gingerly drying off its snow-wet paws with the towel in the other.

The fire crackled pleasantly, and the cat wriggled around at Ludwig's touch, batting his hand with tiny white paws in a manner that was probably playful. The forgotten book lay on the edge of the sofa, and he stared at it for a moment before the lithe, fluffy creature crawled into his lap and nuzzled against his stomach. Ah, well. There would always be time to read later. Ludwig picked the cat up and set it on the floor, standing and traipsing to the kitchen to find proper cat sustenance. To his vague amusement, the cat followed, circling around and in between his feet when he stopped in front of the cabinets.

To his surprise, when the pantry door was opened, the little thing popped in and sat right beneath the pasta shelf, his nose tilted upward, tail twinging from side to side. Ludwig blinked.

"Making yourself at home, aren't you?"

It meowed at him over its... his shoulder.

"Don't answer me. It's odd," he said drolly, digging through the canned food in search of anything cat tummy friendly. He frowned, mumbling to himself. "Can cats eat dog food...?"

A little mewl sounded from below and he felt a little paw bat at his pant leg. He glanced down to see what could only be a look of disapproval on that small feline face. He frowned right back at it.

It was then that he noticed in the light that the kitchen leaked into the pantry, a little white errant curl curved out from below his ear to the right (from his perspective, anyway). He must have mistaken it for a whisker before, but no, that was definitely an abnormally long fur strand.

Ludwig crouched down, reaching out to cup the cat's face, capturing the little curl between his thumb and forefinger.

In the middle of nuzzling the German's hand and trembling at the contact of his fur, it happened.

Ludwig didn't know what hit him, and the cat hadn't had any way to warn him about the repercussions of the curl. And before either of them knew it, with a tiny mewl of surprise and a pop, Ludwig found himself with a lap full of...

Well.

Certainly_ not _a cat.

* * *

Erm. Ludwig supposed that could have been arguable. He -the thing, him, _that _on his lap- had fluffy white ears atop his head, peaking out from soft-looking auburn strands, twitching almost uncomfortably as wide brown eyes stared into his.

"Um..." Was that a tail drifting around behind his shoulders? "You weren't serious about feeding me dog food, were you? Ve, I wouldn't like that at _all_." He squirmed, and Ludwig became helplessly aware of the pair of pale, plush thighs straddling his hips.

Ludwig gave a muffled shout, promptly discarding the... creature from his lap, onto the pantry floor, barely registering the pained _veee _that followed, and rocketed to his feet and out into the kitchen, and then down the hall. Skidding to a stop in front of Gilbert's room, he swooped down in front of his curious dogs and stared into their wet, innocent eyes.

"I'm going insane," he said apologetically, bowing his head. They panted in response.

Ludwig took a few minutes to calm himself before running a hand through his rigid hair and taking a deep, deep breath and hesitantly making his way back to the kitchen.

At first, he was struck by the pleasant aroma that was his greeting. The tang of sauce and meat and _mein Gott_, the cat-man thing was naked in his kitchen cooking white tail swung back and forth rhythmically and he was humming and the curve of his back from between his shoulder blades dipping down his spine to that tail was almost as delicious as the pasta smelled.

Oh yes. He'd gone around the bend.

But he couldn't be hallucinating; Ludwig knew himself fairly well. Well enough to know for a fact that he was not imaginative to come up with something like... _that_. That thing that had taken his apron and tied it neatly at the small of his back and was stirring something positively mouth-watering in his decades-old pot and was now looking right at him over that slim shoulder with what had to have been the most laid-back, contented smile he had ever seen.

"Ve, dog food is no good, but pasta will do nicely, _si_?"

Ludwig kneaded the heels of his palms into his eye sockets for a short moment before uttering a noise of agreement and slowly approached the once-cat.

* * *

Ludwig had insisted that the cat -Feliciano, he was called- sleep in the guest room, and would just double-lock the door against Gilbert. He knew the rules; be in the house by 10:30 PM or find somewhere else to stay. He'd made sure that the bedding was changed and that the room was clean before he showed Feliciano to it, made sure he was comfortable with pajamas, and then settled into his own bed to wonder at the evening's events while staring blankly at the wall before falling into a fitful sleep.

So why, exactly, was there a snoozing man with cat ears lying at a nose-to-nose proximity to him? And why was said man curled up against him like some sort of... of... Well. Like some sort of cat. He cleared his throat. Not only was he curled, but there was a slender arm thrown about his waist, and a leg wedged between his own.

_Well, this is awkward. _Ludwig fought fruitlessly to disentangle himself from Feliciano's monster grip, only to have the other constrict about him tighter, uttering a soft _veee _in his sleep. When he realized that his efforts were for naught, he fell lax in Feliciano's grip, and quietly resolved to himself, _I'll just make sure this doesn't happen again_, unaware of how terribly foolish that steadfast, ironclad will was.

* * *

I feel terrible. I'd promised myself no more multichaps until _The Escape _was done. But I had to do it; this is based on a true personal story. Partially. The beginning, anyway. Ah well. Back to Baten Kaitos.


End file.
